Space in Theory: Kristeva, Foucault, Deleuze seeks to give a detailed but succinct overview of the role of spatial reflection in three of the most influential French critical thinkers of recent decades. It proposes a step-by-step analysis of the changing place of space in their theories, focussing on the common problematic all three critics address, but highlighting the significant differences between them. It aims to rectify an unaccountable absence of detailed analysis to the significance of space in their work up until now.Space in Theory argues that Kristeva, Foucault and Deleuze address the question: How are meaning and knowledge produced in contemporary society? What makes it possible to speak and think in ways we take for granted? The answer which all three thinkers provide is: space. This space takes various forms: psychic, subjective space in Kristeva, power-knowledge-space in Foucault, and the spaces of life as multiple flows of becoming in Deleuze.
This book alternates between analyses of these thinkers� theoretical texts, and brief digressions into literary texts by Barrico, de Beauvoir, Beckett, Bodro�ic or Bonnefoy, via Borges, Forster, Gide, Gilbert, Glissant, Hall, to Kafka, Ondaatje, Perec, Proust, Sartre, Warner and Woolf. These detours through literature aim to render more concrete and accessible the highly complex conceptulization of contemporary spatial theory.
This volume is aimed at students, postgraduates and researchers interested in the areas of French poststructuralist theory, spatial reflection, or more generally contemporary cultural theory and cultural studies.

A traditional British school classroom often had high window-sills—to prevent the seated pupils from being distracted by more exciting events outside, or indeed staring out of the window.

‘Redesigned to face contemporary urban realities, this bench comes standard with a centre arm to discourage overnight stays in its comfortable embrace’—from Belson

Oxford bus stop

This is only one step away from Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon [7] and Michel Foucault’s argument (in Discipline and Punish[8]) that by embedding punishment systems in architecture and institutions (e.g. prisons) rather than meting out direct retribution publicly (e.g. public execution or floggings), the likelihood of adverse public reaction to the punishment is greatly reduced. In the park bench example, a public confrontation between police and a person sleeping on the bench (with possible sympathy from bystanders) can be avoided entirely by preventing anyone sleeping on the bench in the first place (using the architecture to control). Not for nothing are speed humps commonly known as ‘sleeping policemen’ in the UK.

Denis Wood’s samizdat essay on “Shadowed Spaces, In Defense of Indefensible Space” has finally been made available in its original form. The essay, which constitutes a kind of defense of heterotopic spaces, has previously only been available in photocopy and a more formal published version.

Wood is a designer, psychogeographer, and author of many books on mapping and power (including The Power of Maps, and Making Maps co-authored with John Krygier).

I’ve read a lot of Denis’ work and had the pleasure of knowing him for over 15 years, but I had never before read this piece.Continue reading →

President Carter gave a talk last night to the GSU community. I was unfortunately too late to get in the main auditorium and watched in the overflow room with about 50 other people (meaning there were about 650 people there).

Carter discussed the situation in the Middle East and his new book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid (which he pointed out is unpunctuated, so that you could read it in many different ways). This may have been an attempt to deflect criticism of the title’s use of the word “apartheid” but if so in his remarks he made it clear that the wall between Israel and the West Bank pretty much is a form of apartheid.